About Posbury

The name Posbury is of uncertain derivation, but is probably connected with the British proper name Possa. Although Posbury does not rate a mention in the Domesday Book, being part of the tithing of Youweton (Uton) in Crediton Hamlets, nevertheless, it was a site of continuous occupation for many hundreds of years before that date.

First settled in the Iron Age, it remained a British hill fort throughout the Roman occupation of Britain and the dark ages which followed. As the colonisation of Devon by the Saxons crept westwards in the seventh century, Posbury remained an outpost of the Kingdom if the Dumnonii until, in 661AD, King Cenwalh of the Saxons fought and won a battle at Posbury and drove the British off the fertile Redlands westwards.

Nothing more is known of activities in the area until the twelfth century when a quarry was opened up to obtain the warm, red/brown igneous rock much of which was used in building Crediton Church and is to be found, particularly in the door arches of other churches in the neighbourhood. There appears to be no detail of the working quarry, but lying within the manor of Crediton no doubt it was a valuable asset of the Bishop of Exeter, Lord of the manor of Crediton, which was virtually co-existent with Crediton Hamlets.

When in 1871 the churchyard of Crediton Church was extended eastwards by incorporating the road then known as Palace Road or Lane and part of Brown Meadow, making a new road now known as Church Lane, the conveyance of the land required that the wall to built on the east side of the new road should be of Posbury stone.

1836

Crediton Church